About

Quest: the roleplaying adventure game for everyone

$153,614

pledged of $65,000 goal

1,615

backers

Quest is the roleplaying game for everyone.

If you’re completely new to this type of game, we’ll have a friendly conversation with you about how to play. Quest is fast, fun, and easy to learn. We hope to show you how intuitive and immersive storytelling games can and should be. And if you're already an experienced player, you'll find a surprisingly deep game with a refreshing set of modern rules.

This is a game about becoming an extraordinary person in a dangerous world. You’ll explore wondrous places, meet fascinating and mysterious people, witness magical events, and answer the call to go on an exciting adventure. What happens in this world is based on the choices you and your friends make.

Curious? Excited? Ready?

Let's begin.

Quest is a way to tell an exciting story with your friends. You don't have to be an improv actor or a mathematician to be good at it – you just need to open your mind and use a little imagination. The rules of the game are intuitive and help you imagine where the story might go.

These are just some of the ways Quest will help you quickly begin your adventure, and potentially carry it with you for years to come.

The Friendly Guide. Everyone deserves to feel like a hero with their friends at the table, so we wrote a book that feels inviting. It’s not a textbook – it’s a conversation. Along the way, you’ll see a running dialog from a fictional group of players, to help you see how the rules of the game are used to tell the story.

The way it works is simple. Read the left side of the player’s guide to learn the basics, and if you want to learn a little more, see the right side of the book. Here’s what it looks like:

A page spread from the Quest Game Book

The Essential Deck. Quest features a deck of cards with all of the game’s special moves, so that you can reference them at the table without having to flip through a book. The Essential Deck makes it easy and fun to grow as a character. When you begin the game, you'll start with a few moves that make your character special. As you grow during your adventure, you'll get to collect more cards that tell you how to do amazing things.

Essential Deck cards showing Quest's 8 hero roles

The Story Engine. Quest only uses a single (but powerful) die – the twenty-sided die, or “d20.” When the stakes are high in your adventure, rolling the die will help you imagine what happens. Sometimes you’ll use it to walk a tightrope, make a sweet move, or witness the results of an unpredictable spell.

You only need to roll once to see what happens. And if you’re really good at something, you’ll get a bonus. Then, you’ll check to see what the consequences are from an easy-to-remember set of outcomes.

The story engine keeps the game moving fast by letting you succeed a lot. But when you fail, the consequences will be meaningful. Every choice you make matters.

"Quest breaks from the war gaming history of more classic tabletop RPGs to bring a more narrative driven approach both in and out of combat. I love D&D, but it is structurally, by the design and history of war gaming that it comes out of, a game that encourages players into the murderhobo mindset. Quest feels like a game that is trying push back on that inclination systemically. A lot of the spells and skills tend to be a bit more narrative driven which gives a lot more room for encounters that aren't about just about killing monsters."

Spells that tell tales. We think everything you can do in a tabletop roleplaying game should be surprising and delightful. So we created skills and abilities with a focus on narrative and fun. Quest’s skills and spells – the special things your adventurer gets to do – are meant to inspire your own silly, dramatic and unexpected ideas. Here are a few examples:

There are over 300 spells and skills in Quest that you can learn and use. Follow us on Twitter to see more examples, where we'll be posting more previews of Quest's spells, abilities, and items every day.

Play a little, or a lot. You can play Quest just once, or a few times, with groups of any size. You don't have to make a long-term commitment to play, and with our first adventure format, you're not obligated to play every time your group meets; you can easily rejoin the story down the road, if you want. But for groups that want to tell an epic story over months or years, Quest is deep enough to let your character learn and grow over time.

Treasure awaits!

This Kickstarter project is all about getting Quest into your hands. We're making the Quest Game Book, which teaches you how to play, and card decks to make it easy to play and help keep the action moving.

The Quest Game Book

The Game Book is your friendly guide. It contains everything you need to create an extraordinary character, and learn how to play the game. It has a guide for the players, and also a special guide for the Game Master that teaches them how to set up and run the game.

You and your friends can share one book, if you want. (Of course, we think you’ll want your own.)
The Game Book will feature beautiful illustrations from artist Celia Lowenthal, like the ones you see on this page.

A mockup of the Limited Edition Game Book

The Essential Deck

The Essential Deck is an extensive card deck with more than 300 tarot-sized cards, with 9 different foil-stamped card faces representing the game's hero roles. It contains a card for every one of the game's skills and spells, meaning you'll be able to easily have them ready to use in your adventure.

You only need one deck for your entire group.

The Treasure Chest

The Treasure Chest contains more than 100 cards for all sorts of items, including common equipment and wondrous treasures. From legendary spells, to magic swords and rings of power, the Game Master can use this deck to reward the players when they complete quests and make progress in their adventure.

Like Quest's spells and abilities, we've created items and treasure that serve as interesting story prompts that you can use to add excitement and mystery to your adventure. Like this nefarious little magic ring:

A mockup of a card from the Treasure Chest

Quest: The Reach. The Reach is the first official adventure for Quest. It's an expansive, open-ended adventure format that works for groups of all sizes, and campaigns of any length. The Reach will be made available to all backers for free as a PDF download, and will be available on Quest's website when it is released.

In The Reach, a shared central city is the main character. It is the last city in the world, and the world surrounding it is becoming increasingly dangerous. Players will embark on missions both inside and outside of the city, and work to strengthen it over time to guard against looming threats. They'll investigate mysteries, recruit and retain followers, engage in diplomacy, pursue and collect artifacts, endure unspeakable terrors, and fight to save their world from catastrophe.

In The Reach, the Game Master can set the agenda, or the players can choose a mission they want to go on and ask the GM to run it for them. After each session, the players return to the city to regroup for their next mission, allowing them to affect a persistent world and rejoin the story anytime, even with a different group of players.

This adventure format will also be designed to let Quest's community easily create and share their own missions and storylines to add to the world.

Stretch Goal update: The Adventure Deck

Thanks to your support, we're unlocking a stretch goal early. Originally we announced we'd be making a separate Creature Deck if we hit $140,000, but your enthusiasm has encouraged us to find a way to make it work below that goal.

So we're happy to announce that The Treasure Chest is now The Adventure Deck. The Adventure Deck will include all of the items and loot originally planned for The Treasure Chest deck, plus a set of cards for creatures. Two decks in one!

We'll be giving each creature in Quest flavorful introductions, so you can get an idea of their mood and introduce them well to the players. As one example, here's how we'd describe the terrifying Overland Centipede!

A clattering sound on the rocky soil grows louder and louder. The ground begins to tremble as something moves rapidly through the tall brush. Then it stops. Suddenly -- a striped tangle of armored plates and a hundred freakish legs shoots up from the brush: an aberrant tower of hissing hatred. The creature turns to face you, antennae erect, as flesh-ripping pincers click together in anticipation of its next meal.

Yikes!

What your support means

Quest is already a rich game with an intuitive rule set, exciting roles, and hundreds of spells and abilities. Your support will help us transform the game into something special. Specifically, it will fund the completion of the art for the game book and card decks, and help us hire professionals to prepare final designs and copy for print.

Finally, the funding goal will help us use an offset printing method to ensure the highest quality for the book and card decks. Our goal reflects the higher upfront costs of offset printing, which requires larger minimum orders of the product. While this is more expensive than print-on-demand in upfront costs, the offset printing method will create products of much higher quality. We only want the best possible version of Quest to go out to backers – something you'll be delighted by every time you play.

The project's funding goal will only go toward the following things:

Art for the Game Book, Core Deck, and Adventure Deck

Professional layout & design

Prototyping & quality control

Copy editing

Product printing, packaging, and delivery

Kickstarter fees & payment fees (around 9%)

Administrative costs (no more than 3%)

Our goal is all about creating the first set of Quest artifacts. But there is a long-term vision for the game. If the project achieves significant success, we will expand the world of Quest by bringing together artists and authors to create adventure modules for people to use. Our larger goal is to create an inclusive, broad community of creators and players for a system that welcomes everyone to the table.

Quest will ship in fall 2019. Because great artwork takes time and care, we want to take enough time to create something that feels beautiful and complete. Backers will receive previews and updates on our work on the game from now, until it's finished. We will continue testing the game throughout the art and design process.

All backers will receive a PDF copy of the game's final ruleset in early 2019, in advance of the game shipping. This copy will include a small playable adventure, in case you'd like to try the game out before the full products arrive.

The creators

T.C. Sottek, Creator

T.C. is the designer and creator of Quest. He's also a loving dungeon master, cat warden, and the Managing Editor at The Verge. Feel free to say hi to him on Twitter, especially if you want to talk about spells.

Celia Lowenthal, Illustrator

Celia Lowenthal is a freelance comic artist and illustrator with a penchant for drawing patterns and puffy period sleeves. She graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016 and lives in New York. Find her on Twitter and on Tumblr!

Chris Plante, Editor

Chris is the editor of Quest. He's also a writer, reporter, critic and the Executive Editor and Co-Founder of Polygon. He lives and works in Austin, TX. Find him on Twitter.

Finally, we want to give immense thanks to the dozens of groups already testing, playing, and enjoying Quest.

Risks and challenges

Quest's creators have years of experience launching and managing publications that have delighted millions of people around the world. We're experts in creating well-written and edited content for lots of audiences.

Of course, physical publishing can be affected by unforeseen circumstances. These include possible production delays based on third-party circumstances we cannot control. We will do our best to mitigate these risks by working closely with partners and overseeing the process from start to finish.

We will be working with PrintNinja to manufacture the Game Book: a trusted, reliable offset printing company. Using a high-volume offset printing method, we will be able to create & ship products to backers for any level of success. For the card decks, we will be working with Ad Magic: the same company that manufactured Cards Against Humanity.

If a very substantial number of products are ordered, production lead time may be increased. Additionally, there may be circumstances out of our control (like trade embargoes between the US and China) that could affect production. We will be prepared with backup production options in the event of a disruption.

We will be working with a third-party fulfillment company to warehouse, handle, and ship orders to backers around the world. This will ensure efficient delivery once production begins. Again, if any unforeseen problems arise, we will be prepared to use backup fulfillment servicing companies to deliver rewards to backers.

Finally, Quest is a fully original, self-published work. The creators fully own the copyright on the product, and it requires no third-party approval or review.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 1,000 or more
About US$ 1,000

The Legend

You will get to name one of Quest's legendary magic items, which will appear in the Game Book and the Treasure Chest (name subject to our approval). You will be given a few items to choose from, or we will work with you to create a unique item with a backstory.

Your name will also appear in the game's credits under "special thanks." You'll receive a framed copy of your namesake card.

You will also receive six Limited Edition Game Books, one Essential Deck, and one Treasure Chest.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 1,420 or more
About US$ 1,420

The Archmage

You will have one of Quest's spells named after you, or a name of your choice (subject to our approval). Your name will appear in the spell's title in the Game Book and on the corresponding card in the Core Deck. We'll give you a list of spells to choose from.

Your name will also appear in the game's credits under "special thanks." You will receive a framed copy of your namesake card.

You will also receive six Limited Edition Game Books, one Essential Deck, and one Treasure Chest.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge US$ 5,000 or more
About US$ 5,000

The Historian

You will be the Historian of the city in Quest's first official adventure: The Reach. We will name the character after you, or a name of your choice (subject to our final approval). The Historian is a permanent major character that will have a backstory and be involved in the adventure's main story arcs.

You will have a custom illustration created for your character by the artist commissioned to work on The Reach (to be determined), and receive a framed print of your illustration as the keeper of knowledge of the last city in the world.

You will receive an individual credit line in the Quest Game Book.

Finally, you will receive a one-of-a-kind, Unique Edition of the Quest Game Book, with a special hardcover casing from The Wyvern Bindery in London -- the same bookbinders who created authentic book props seen in notable films such as Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes, and Hugo. This edition will be personally signed by Quest's creators and sent to you in a wooden collector's box.